Medicine Hat Joe

Week 18  2 Kings 17

The kingdom of Israel was finished by chapter 17. Kaput.
At the end of the story the writer goes back to the beginning and says something about the first king: Jeroboam drew Israel away from following the Lord and made them commit a great sin. And the people persisted in all the evil ways of Jeroboam. Jeroboam stands out as a beacon of darkness and his (bad) influence comes up again-and-again. For instance Jeroboam’s son: Nadab did what was evil in the Lord’s sight and followed the example of his father, continuing in the sins of idolatry that Jeroboam had led Israel to commit.
I wondered about the other 17 kings – Baasha Elah Zimri Omri Ahab Ahaziah Jehoram Jehu Jehoahaz Jehoash Jeroboam II Zechariah Shallum Menahem Pekahiah Pekah & Hoshea. How many of them imitated Jeroboam?
I did a quick 27-chapter scan looking to see if it was definitely spelled-out whether a king followed Jeroboamism. And what I found was that Baasha Zimri Omri Ahab Ahaziah Jehoram Jehu Jehoahaz Jehoash Jeroboam II Zechariah Menahem Pekahiah & Pekah all did (Elah Shallum & Hoshea were the exceptions.)
The kings who followed Jeroboam might have rung-up some of their own individual religious-isms. But the starting point was Jeroboam in 1 Kings 12. He got the ball rolling. The others added momentum.
I don’t know if that makes Jeroboam 1 the worst king (that’s not what I was after). But I think it’s a warning about the power of a bad influencer.

Note: quotes from 2 Kings 17:21-22 1 Kings 15:26 (NLT)

 

Week 18  2 Kings 1-8

Jehoram was Ahab’s son and he became king in the first chapter of 2 Kings.
At first I figured that Jehoram’s story was long because he was a contemporary of Elisha – a king hanging-around in the shadow of the prophet. So I needed to check that:
Chapter 1 Jehoram becomes king
Chapter 2 Jehoram isn’t mentioned
Chapter 3 Jehoram is named in the battle against Moab
Chapter 4 Elisha miracle-stories. Jehoram isn’t named
Chapter 5 Naaman miracle. A ‘king of Israel’ is mentioned 3xs. Jehoram isn’t named
Chapter 6 Arameans. A ‘king of Israel’ is mentioned about 8xs. Jehoram isn’t named
Chapter 7 Ben-had. A ‘king of Israel’ is mentioned twice. Jehoram isn’t named
Chapter 8:1-6 a ‘king of Israel’ anecdote. Jehoram isn’t named
Chapter 8:16-24 Jehoram is named. His career is summarized. And then he dies.
Jehoram is only identified clearly in about 35-verses. But I think that he’s probably the (unnamed) king-of-Israel. So in that case 2 Kings devotes about 185-verses to Jehoram’s monarchy. But…when push-comes-to-shove I think he stays mostly in the shadows. A bit of an anonymous phantom.
Both (father) Ahab and (son) Jehoram get a lot of coverage. The big difference between them is that I think Ahab was a star whereas Jehoram was a third-rater. Both were bad. Ahab was Capable Bad. Jehoram seemed more Inept Bad.
At first I thought that Ahab was a marquee guy because of Elijah. But now I don’t.
And I thought that Jehoram was a marquee guy because of Elisha. And I still do.

Week 18  1 Kings 16-22

I’ve been wondering why the Big Four kings of Israel got so much coverage (while the other fifteen only got about seven-verses each).
At first I thought that King Ahab was featured because his story was told in tandem with the life of Elijah – that Ahab piggy-backed on Elijah. That might be true but looking at Ahab-specific content in those chapters I see Ahab was pretty important too (of the 209-verses 167-verses are about Ahab after I subtract all the Elijah content). But there’s more to it. The Lord actually communicated with Ahab using the prophets:
• Elijah forecast the three-year drought
• There was the shocking events at Carmel
• Ahab got battle intel from a prophet for his fight with the Arameans
• Elijah lowered-the-boom on Ahab because of the murder of Naboth (to his credit Ahab did repent for that)
• Micaiah forecast Ahab’s doom in battle.
So at least five times Ahab bumped into some pretty big sign posts. And now I’m thinking that Ahab was one of the featured Big Four because he was given more first-hand & personal & specific & convincing info from the Lord than any other king of Israel.
In spite of all that he didn’t make the best use of those benefits. In the end the verdict on Ahab was: no one else so completely sold himself to do what was evil in the Lord’s sight as did Ahab.

Note 1: quote from 1 Kings 21:25 (NLT).
Note 2: Ahab connected with prophets in: 17:1 18:16-46 20:13-28 & 35-43 21:17-29 & 22:6-28.

Week 18  1 Kings 9-10

Jehu is the last member of the club that I’m calling the Big Four (I’ll come back to Ahab & Jehoram later).
Jehu’s story covers 73-verses – two full chapters – so it’s pretty thorough. It starts with Elisha forecasting that Jehu will be the linchpin in the destruction of the Ahab-family.
I’ve read the story of Jehu the Annihilator before and words like thug liar conspirator deceiver murderer & executioner come to mind. Jehu looks like an all-round Bad Guy.
But there are two contrary things going on:
First One. When the Ahab-family was gone and Baal-worship in Israel was eliminated the Lord’s verdict to Jehu was this: you have done well in following my instructions to destroy the family of Ahab. Because of this I will cause your descendants to be kings of Israel. The Ahab-family had crossed the line and Jehu had become the Hammer of the Lord. Sure…he had something personal to gain from it. But he still got credit.
Second One. Subsequently however: Jehu did not obey the law of the Lord with all his heart. He refused to turn from the sins of idolatry. So…he was discredited.
I think that Jehu – way more than any other king of Israel – did what he was told to do. But like all the others he latched onto things he was told not to do. And the not-to-dos outweighed the to-dos.

Note: quotes from 2 Kings 10:30 31 (NLT). End-of-month reading report: I’ve read 443 chapters. Reading is 37% completed in 33% of the year.

Week 18  1 Kings 11-14

Out of the nineteen kings of Israel there’s only four that had actual stories told about them (not just summaries). I wasn’t sure why that was but I decided to slow down for a couple of days to see if I could find out why the Big Four – Jeroboam Ahab Joram & Jehu – were treated big.
Jeroboam was the first king of Israel. He began his career as a hard-working official of Solomon until the relationship broke down (Solomon tried to kill him).
After Solomon died Jeroboam led the anti-Rehoboam faction that split away ten tribes from the southern kingdom of Judah-Benjamin.
One of the first things Jeroboam did was to create a new state-religion for the north: good practical decision…bad religious decision. An unnamed prophet gave Jeroboam a pretty solid negative-prophecy about that. A bit later another prophet (Ahijah) gave him another dire warning. Jeroboam disregarded both.
The Jeroboam story covers about 80-verses (way more than the 7-verse average of the 15 “obituary-column” kings). I think there’s two reasons Jeroboam got the coverage he did: a) because he was the very first king of Israel and b) because he re-invented religious practices in the north and reoriented everyone away from the Lord.
There isn’t much doubt that Jeroboam was a bad king. Ahijah told him: you have done more evil than all who lived before you…Since you have turned your back on me (the Lord), I will bring disaster on your dynasty.

Note: quote from 1 Kings 14:9-10 (NLT)

Week 18  1-2 Kings

All the kings of Israel are mentioned in the two books of the kings. But with fifteen of them the accounts are very short.
(I wondered if the length-of-the-story corresponded to the length-of-the-reign. But I don’t think so. Jeroboam the Second – for instance – had a long reign (41-years) but his story is told in just seven verses.)
I decided to list the king’s names on a sheet of paper and then add the number of verses allocated to them:
Nadab 7 verses. Baasha 14. Elah 7. Zimri 6. Omri 6. Ahaziah 12. Jehoahaz 9. Jehoash 4. Jeroboam II 7. Zechariah 5. Shallum 3. Menahem 7. Pekahiah 4. Pekah 7. Hoshea 4.
That’s an average of about 7-verses per king. I get the feeling that with these 15 I’m getting something like an obituary column. For example:
Nadab son of Jeroboam began to rule over Israel in the second year of King Asa’s reign in Judah. He reigned in Israel two years. But he did what was evil in the LORD’s sight and followed the example of his father, continuing the sins that Jeroboam had led Israel to commit.
That’s pretty much what I get with all fifteen – give or take:
1. Name
2. Family Line
3. Length of Reign
4. Religious Performance
The stories of the other four kings of Israel are different. With Jeroboam I Ahab Jehoram & Jehu I’m getting multiple chapters tracking their stories. I wonder what’s going on with the Big Four.
So I think I’ll have to look at them a bit more carefully.

Note: quote from 1 Kings 15:25-26 (NLT)

Week 17  1-2 Kings

Last year I spent some time looking at the 15 kings of Judah. I wanted to try ranking them to get a comparative idea of how they each graded-out – Best-to-Worst. One thing that impressed me was the poor overall quality of Judah’s kings.
Anyway at the time I had zero interest in the kings of Israel. But this year I decided to balance things out and look at the northern kings.
I read through pretty quickly and found 19 kings: Jeroboam I Nadab Baasha Elah Zimri Omri Ahab Ahaziah Jehoram/Joram Jehu Jehoahaz Jehoash Jeroboam II Zechariah Shallum Menahem Pekahiah Pekah & Hoshea.
I noticed an expression that was used about quite a few of them: he did what was evil. That exact phrase described Nadab Baasha Zimri Omri Ahab Ahaziah Jehoram/Joram Jehoahaz Jehoash Jeroboam II Zechariah Menahem Pekahiah Pekah & Hoshea. 15 of 19 kings did what was evil.
That didn’t exactly make the other 4 kings model citizens:
Jeroboam 1 sinned and made all of Israel sin along with him
There’s a sentence about all the sin Elah led Israel to commit
Jehu did not obey the law of the Lord…with all his heart and he refused to turn from the sins of idolatry
And Shallum murdered Zechariah to take the throne.
So this meant all 19 of them were evil kings.
Which seems pretty clear-cut. Even so there’s a couple of things I figure I’ll circle back to and think about.

Note: quotes from 1 Kings 14:16 16:13 2 Kings 10:31 (NLT)

Week 17  Psalm 113

Today I read: our God is in the heavens, and he does as he wishes. Usually I don’t think too much about how exactly the Lord is spending his time. If I did this verse wouldn’t be too much help. It just says that a) the Lord is in heaven and that b) he’s doing whatever he pleases.
But the reason the verse registered with me was because just yesterday I also read about the Lord in heaven: who can be compared with the Lord our God, who is enthroned on high? So 113 confirmed 115 about the Lord’s position of strength. His elevation. His ability to do whatever he pleases. But 113 also supplemented 115’s barebones whatever-he-wants comment by saying that from heaven the Lord stoops to look.
And not only that. 113 tells me a couple of things that the Lord takes action on:
He lifts the poor from the dirt
He lifts the needy from the garbage dump
He sets them among princes
He gives the barren woman a home so that she becomes a happy mother.
So when I connect 113 & 115 I find two things that are true (plus I’m adding another one that isn’t listed):
1) the Lord does whatever he wants
2) one of those whatever-he-wants things is to look down and help people in need
3) I also think it’s safe to say the Lord does a lot of other things not mentioned in 113.

Note: quotes from Psalm 115:3 NLT 113:5 6 7-9 NLT

Week 17  Psalm 109

The middle (grisly) section of this psalm (verses 6-15) is a prayer-list of bad things that David hopes will happen to the people who are attacking him. He’s basically praying they’ll be cursed with calamity.
This looks like an actual prayer (praying is communicating with the Lord and that’s what David is doing here). But it would have to be classed as a pretty intemperate unrestrained excessive prayer. Let’s face it – it’s a pretty vengeful and hateful prayer. A bible reader instinctively knows that something bad is going on.
And another thing a reader gets tipped-off about is that hateful prayers are possible. 109 shows that I can basically say whatever I want in prayer – for example, if I can pray that the Lord will let my enemy’s children wander about and beg then that opens the door to other possibilities. 109 shows me a couple of things that might develop:
a) I can be really angry with people kicking me around
b) I can pray while I’m angry
c) My angry prayers might mutate into murderous prayers.
I think the real question is whether this is a model prayer for me to imitate or whether it’s an example of a substandard prayer – a prayer that’s  definitely possible and definitely understandable…but a prayer that’s not recommended.
Since I’ve read what Jesus says about what my reaction should be when I’m faced with violence I figure 109 isn’t a model prayer.

Note: quote from Psalm 109:10 (NIV)

Week 17  Psalm 107

The psalm begins with some general advice: give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story.
Then the writer tells four anecdotes – descriptions/stories – about the experiences of four groups of people:
#1 Destitute vagabonds searching for a city
#2 Prisoners who were locked-up for rebellion against the Lord
#3 Rebellious & evil fools with one foot in-the-grave
#4 Terrified sailors caught in a ferocious storm.
Groups #2 & #3 look like people who disdained the Lord.
But Groups #1 & #4 just look like regular people who happened to be in a real bind.
Whoever & whatever they all are they’re all desperate and in each case they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress. That’s the main point of these four Redemption Stories (which is what I think they are) and that point is repeated four times.
At first I thought the four groups might be referring to Israel’s history.
Then I wondered if the four groups were meant to represent different classes of people.
But I think they’re just four examples that the writer chose. People in a jam who’ve run out of options. He might have chosen ten or a hundred others. The point is that they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress.
Different circumstances. Different stories. Same fortunate outcome.

Note: quotes from Psalm 107:1-2 28 (NIV). The Four Groups: Vagabonds 107:4-9. Prisoners 107:10-16. Fools 107:17-22. Sailors 107:23-32.